Style: Hard rock, alternative rock, art rock, prog rock, djent (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Queen, Radiohead, The Protomen
Country: UK
Release date: 26 June 2026

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I’m willing to bet that many of our more prog-purist readers of a certain age cut their teeth, as I did, on the early albums of eccentric English rock act Muse. You probably remember the first time you heard that filthy bass drop in “New Born”, that headbanging capital-R Riff that closes out “Stockholm Syndrome”, or the iconic sci-fi gallop of “Knights of Cydonia”. Muse embody a lot of rock’s best and most enduring qualities, even if it’s been a bumpy ride. Most listeners I know have a lot of time for those iconic first four albums, and diminishing minutes for the following five. To tell the truth, I didn’t even know they’d released that many, which makes my cognisance of their tenth release in a thirty-two year career all the more unexpected. Clearly then, The WOW! Signal has the hype or marketing factor—but does it have The WOW! Factor? 

It certainly has The NOSTALGIA! Factor: opener “The Dark Forest” is explicitly billed as a ‘sequel’ to arguably Muse’s most beloved hit, “Knights of Cydonia”, and lifts the whammified guitar tone and inimitable canter wholesale. None of which is to say it’s purely derivative, those old threads are actually well-woven into a track which moves through Latin chant and a riff Pitchfork describe, wrongly, as ‘Meshuggah worship’. This nostalgic sensibility continues across The WOW! Signal—the album is inspired lyrically by Bellamy’s divorce, so perhaps instrumentally the band felt a desire to look back to better days. “Cryogen” sees Muse dusting off the overdriven fuzz scales of “Plug in Baby”, while “Be With You” somewhat more derivatively channels the organ dirge of “Invincible” before laying down an electronic beat that harkens back to “Take A Bow”. 

But Muse don’t always sound like Muse; sometimes they sound like The Weeknd and Carpenter Brut! At least, those seem to be the influences undergirding the funky dance number “Nightshift Superstar”, with some filthy bass work from Chris Wolstenholme and a surprise explosion into darkwave. At other junctures, they sound like Ellie Goulding, probably because Goulding herself features on penultimate number, “Hush”, which proves an oddly successful melding of typical Muse-isms with the pop singer’s mousy brand of electropop. “The Sickness in You and I” takes its stadium rock idyll well over the top and then just keeps going. Bellamy also knocks out some bonafide djent riffs with his very first eight-string guitar, notably on “Unravelling”, which feints by starting off electronically before delivering riffs more suited to a VOLA record. Almost random interspersions of that low-eight heft appear elsewhere, accoutrements on tracks such as “The Sickness of You and I” and “Hush”, utilised almost like instrumental gags. “Hexagons” pulls off the best impersonation of an old Muse track, with an unreasonably epic guitar intro giving way to a spacey synth arpeggio motif which makes you feel like you’re sojourning through space. 

Some tracks are less impressive. Muse’s ballads have always tended to play it safe, and the serviceable “Shimmering Scars” is no exception, although it features a rather moving organ break and Bellamy’s beaten-down beseechment of ‘was I not enough?’ “Be With You” is similarly saccharine, while closer “Space Debris” hits a more sincere note—‘love can drift away like space debris’—but is largely forgettable for its restraint. When Muse’s long-lived reliance on blunt force is shorn away for the more emotive numbers, there’s a lack of inspiration. The other side of that penchant for bombast is excesses that seem a little silly, such as the somewhat random clap n’ stomp outro on “Cryogen” or the series of choices that led to hiring a child choir for “Nightshift Superstar” and then electronically remixing them. Of course, half the fun of listening to Muse is that moment of realising ‘oh shit, you’re really doing this, huh?’ but when you throw all you have at the wall, not everything sticks.

On their tenth outing, Muse might sound a little auto-parodic at times but who doesn’t thirty years into their career? Fortunately, those decades have seen them compose so bombastically and with such a willingness to experiment that they can recycle their own sound and still run rings around every other legacy act working in the rock scene. Does The WOW! Signal wow? Occasionally, yes, but most of the time it’s just unexpectedly good fun from a band who many a casual fan dismissed, perhaps unfairly, a long time ago. 

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Recommended tracks: Hexagons, The Dark Forest, Nightshift Superstar
You may also like: Frost*, Kyros, Temic
Final verdict: 7/10

Related links: Official Website | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Warner Records Inc.

Muse is:
– Matt Bellamy (vocals, guitars, keyboards)
– Chris Wolstenholme (bass, backing vocals)
– Dominic Howard (drums)